Reflections on the Veg Garden 2017
The photo above shows the veg garden at the height of its growth in July this year. Vegetable growing is a tricky business. Plants need a lot of coddling; the weather tries its best to thwart you and half the …
Potager
How to grow carrots – for beginners
Carrots as a main crop are well worth growing. They can be temperamental, but once you get the hang of it you can grow all the family needs for six months of the year. Carrots are not a posh crop like asparagus or melon, …
Formal pond in the vegetable garden
The centre piece of my vegetable garden is this formal pond, which was started in 2012. It’s overall size is about 6′ x 11′, but this is an illusion as it is actually two ponds, with the bridge covering the …
Paving the Potager
[slideshow] We took advantage of the fine weather over Easter to begin paving the paths around the raised oak vegetable beds. This had always been part of the original plan but as the gardens are almost entirely DIY we can only …
Raised beds
Raised beds
I use raised beds in many parts of the gardens here at Rosemary Cottage. They serve both practical and aesthetic functions, and when designed well with good materials they are relatively quick to construct, durable and easy to maintain or even dismantle if a complete re-design should ever be wanted.
Swede ready in July!?
Wow! I only sowed these in late March and yet they have grown to grapefruit size already! The bed is only a 4ft square, but supports at least 30 plants – that’s lots of Sunday lunches covered. We have eaten a …
Standard Gooseberries
Growing gooseberries as standards provides an opportunity to bring formal design features into the vegetable garden. It’s also a very practical method for growing this quintessentially English fruit. Standard gooseberries are normal gooseberry varieties grafted onto Ribes aureum which has been trained …